This kids' branch of Learn English (created in the UK) contains interactives, short stories, crafts, songs, and even an opportunity for students to help their younger brothers and sisters learn English. A free log-in allows you access to printed versions of the stories (with questions), the ability to make comments, enter competitions, answer polls, and even create a "character." Another log in for teachers and parents opens up suggestions for teaching and using the resources of the site. Professionals can also find video tips and access to helpful articles. Access to the site is available in other languages such as Chinese and French, all aimed at teaching English. A text help feature using "BrowseAloud" opens up the English learning to students with vision or reading challenges. Note that vocabulary used is British, so you may need to explain a few words to US or Canadian students, e.g. "rubbish bin."This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Primary grade and preK teachers will find many useful interactives for basic skills like colors and phonics on this site, even though it is intended for learning English. Share the activities as a center or for extra practice for struggling students. Check with your administration about whether students can register individually for the site. Introduce this site to your class on an interactive whiteboard or projector. Make a shortcut to this site on classroom computers and have your ELL/ESL students use it as one of your learning stations. Short stories and other interactive features of the site would work well with special education students, too. Be sure to share this link with parents of your ELL students if they have Internet access at home.

Find interactives and puzzles across the curriculum to spark curiosity and increase motivation, concentration, and skills. Two different levels of play allow a greater range of skill level. This award-winning site offers a huge variety of activities for reading, writing, vocabulary, spelling, math, and thinking skills. Many activities require Java.

In the Classroom

Use kids' love of games to inspire problem solvers and thinkers within each of your students. This ever-changing site allows for a wide variety of topics and interests. Use as a center tool, reward time, reinforcement, introduction, or review of a variety of skills and concepts. Many of the games are well suited for ELL students to simply practice reading directions and using vocabulary. Add as a link to your website to provide interesting new ideas and concepts. Inspire thinkers in your gifted or advanced classes. Use in computer classes to provide examples for game types. Use as examples of review tools at the end of any unit so students can create their own review games to challenge each other. Put the daily challenge up on your interactive whiteboard or projector as students are entering the room. Preservice teachers will find this site invaluable.

Find a comprehensive list of sources for eBooks and ways to use them. Dr. Terry Cavanaugh has a wide variety of information dedicated to using eBooks in the classroom. Find links for online libraries, news, blogs, history, platforms, features, accommodations, samples, and borrowing guidelines. A section entitled educational applications, features creating eBooks with PowerPoint, digital Big Books, and eBooks in higher education. Classroom lesson ideas along with reading strategies help you incorporate eBooks into your curriculum. A link to the Florida recommended eBook list is also given. Find advice on video book talks, Book trading with eBooks, and an online Book cataloging library resource tool. A section for books promoting eBooks use in the classrooms lists resources to make you proficient. Find samples for creating eBooks to fit into your own classroom needs.

In the Classroom

Capture your student's interest in technology and reading with eBooks. Join the latest craze to promote life long reading. Join blogs to see what other teachers are doing. Use as a parent resource to help promote interest. Use as background information while writing grants or proposals for technology grants. Be sure to investigate the variety of classroom ideas for using technology and eBooks.

Consider incorporating technology into your literature circles. You might want to start with a whole class novel, having students listen to certain chapters using an eBook. Have the "discussion director" for the group post questions on Edmodo reviewed here with the understanding that they may answer the questions on Edmodo, but these are "discussion starters" for the circle meeting in class.

Bring some creativity into your literature lessons using this site that goes way beyond rote answers. Choose skills from drop boxes, identify one or two stories to analyze/compare, choose your thinking skills, and decide what the final product will be. For example, "Substitute The Giver's setting for A Wrinkle In Time's setting. Dramatize how this would affect A Wrinkle In Time's plot. Create a skit," or "Rearrange Oh The Places You Will Go's plot. Analyze how this would affect its tone. Create a photo essay ." Choose whatever book(s) are relevant to your class. Experiment with different ideas easily until coming up with the perfect response question for your class or individualize easily for different student responses. The creator of this site does admit that it is a rather new site with a few kinks. His email is provided if you see any issues. Our review team noticed nothing unusual, and all options were functioning properly, at the time of this review.

In the Classroom

Use this site to create unique lessons and literature responses that require critical thinking responses from your students. Share with students and allow them to create their own response at the end of a unit when comparing two books or reflecting on one book. Use this site as a resource for incorporating different levels of Blooms Taxonomy into your classroom and for differentiation among students. Have students make a multimedia presentation using one of the many TeachersFirst Edge tools reviewed here.

Create various types of graphs and charts - easily! Input data quickly, and explore multiple ways to show the data using the various types of graphs available. Easily see the relationships between the data as you play with the graphic. Note: Take (and save) a screen shot of your chart as not all charts have been saved correctly. Once a chart has been published, it can no longer be edited. There is a short video tutorial on the homepage explaining how to use this site. This site uses Java.

In the Classroom

You will want to play with this tool before using it in class. Use anywhere numerical data is collected and is best shown in a chart. Collect data in a science, survey, or math class and display it using different graphs to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using each graph type. Use for quick creation and sharing of created graphs. Create charts together easily on an interactive whiteboard when introducing the different types. Have students operate the board while others offer instructions on what to do next. Use graphs to portray different sets of data about a topic in a new and unique way. Use this tool to create graphs and charts for presentations and reports. Make quick charts students can share with others such as "How I spend my time" and "Places I have visited." During political campaign seasons, create charts to better visualize what the pollsters are saying.

Use this simple QR code site to type a 100 character message and hear it read by a voice synthesizer when the code is scanned. You can also read/record your own voice. Type or dictate text and click to generate a QR code that will say the text aloud. Simply type text or click the microphone to dictate text. Use a QR reader on a mobile device or on a school computer or laptop in order to prepare the generated QR code. Try scanning the audible QR code here audible QR code here to hear an example we created. At the time of this review, the languages available included Portugese, Spanish, French, Japanese, English, and Italian.

In the Classroom

The use of QR Codes in the classroom is limitless, and adding an audio option makes them even more accessible. QR Codes can be used with portable devices or webcams on desktop computers. Create QR codes for assignments with quick directions, rubric information, editing instructions, or web resources. This would be great fun for a digital scavenger hunt. Embed QR codes that "tell" important audible information for your students or parents on a classroom website. Create a QR code to go home on student planners reminding them to do their homework. Add a QR Code to tell your schedule or learning goals. Share QR code audio announcements of special events to your families. For study guides, provide QR codes for answers so students can self-check. Create a living history museum of any time period, with simple explanations or fast facts. For vocabulary words in English or any other language, provide correct pronunciations or sample sentences and definitions of each word. If you work with non-readers or students learning English or another language, prepare recordings that will play when students scan the QR code with an iTouch or mobile phone. Have students practice spoken language skills and create their own audible QR codes for others to try. With very young children, you can put a QR code on signs labeling classroom objects and have them scan with mobile device cameras to hear (as well as see) the words for the object. This could be very helpful for nonreaders or English language learners.

Create and send e-cards with this online card creator: birthdays, holidays, thank you cards, and countless other events. Each topic includes several choices of cards. After choosing a card, enter the recipient's name, a message, and sign. Cards can be "signed" by multiple members of a group. There is even an option to upload a picture next to the sender's signature. Once finished, cards can be sent via email or posted to Facebook.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Students can create and send birthday cards to historical figures, sympathy cards to widows of slain leaders, thank you cards to persons that have had a big impact in our world, famous scientists, good luck to presidential candidates, etc. After creating cards, students can send them to your email account to be printed and included as part of bigger classroom projects. Teach how to write a friendly note, then post the results on a class bulletin board.

Encourage your students to do their best writing at BoomWriter. Once students submit their writing, share it with the class or a small group to create a book. Here's how it works: Provided with a "starter chapter," students continue the story by writing additional chapters. Students vote on chapters submitted (anonymously), and the chapters receiving the most votes are included into a book that students, teachers, and parents can choose to have published by BoomWriter. After registration, students can see and begin contributions to a project with teachers able to oversee each student's writing, comments, and edits of other students' work. When all contributions are complete, the class reads the submissions and votes. Writers' names aren't revealed until after the voting, thereby eliminating any "classroom politics" that could happen in the voting stage. There is a short video on the home page introducing BoomWriter and how to get started with the program.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Use this site to excite students as writers. Encourage students to read other students' writing for ideas about what makes a story interesting. Create a friendly competition within your grade level by starting a book and choosing a winner. Create new books as different writing concepts are introduced such as dialogue, foreshadowing, etc. to help making learning fun. Have students create online posters using Check This (reviewed here). Science and other curricula teachers could have students review a unit just studied by creating their own texts or story books on the curriculum topic.

Have you ever wanted to see your own face on a dollar bill? Use this online image editor to personalized bills with your own picture. Just upload your picture (or any image) using the photo link at the bottom of the page. Images can be moved around within the picture frame, and there is an option to adjust the image size by zooming in or out. Save the edited image by right-clicking the image and selecting "save" to download the output image to your computer. Then print the dollar bill with your image. The site offers currency from many different countries from Antarctica to Yugoslavia, and you can create posters, decks of cards, and more.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Have fun creating personalized money for students to practice counting! Allow students to buy classroom rewards using your own classroom dollars generated using this site. Use class-made manipulatives from this site to teach basic economic concepts with simulations: running a small business, supply and demand, or simply making change. Use custom made currency as a behavior incentive system to help emotional support students build self-control. If students study different cultures, why not have them design their own country, complete with currency? Share this site with parents to use at home with their students or for the PTO/PTA to create fun money for school events.

This award-winning site contains both original and classic short stories and children's tales in audio form. On the left sidebar you can choose the genre. Each selection has a brief summary on the opening page, so you can decide whichever story appeals to you. In addition to the mostly shorter selections, there is a fairly extensive list of stories that are around 10 minutes in length. Some stories are audio only (no text). You do NOT need to pay to simply listen from the website. Click the "play" button to play. Downloads cost money.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Have students try out this site with headphones on individual computers. Turn up your speakers and share this on your projector or interactive whiteboard as a listening activity. Use this site as extra listening practice for ELL/ESL students or any class. Create some reading/listening comprehension questions for students. Or better yet, have cooperative learning groups listen to DIFFERENT short stories and create 3-4 comprehension questions. Then have students rotate stories and try out the comprehension questions created by their classmates. Since nearly all stories are audio only, this site is excellent for listening practice. If you have print versions of these classics, be sure to have them handy at a listening center for beginning readers to follow along.

This amazing site contains thousands of lesson plans and activities for students of all ages (ages 3-16+). Simple registration is required with an email address and password. Choose a grade range to search for activities. Note that terminology for lessons is from the UK, so you may need to "translate" for U.S. curriculum topics and spelling. Choose subjects then further categorized into topics. Many links include complete lessons plans with items such as PowerPoint lessons, videos, quizzes, worksheets, and much more. Other options on the site allows you to save items as favorites, follow other users, save searches, and upload materials. Another offering is the "Whole School" category that includes resources for school needs such as behavior and assemblies.

YouTube Teachers and the related YouTube EDU form an education-oriented area of YouTube that categorizes videos into subjects for easy retrieval. YouTube is a vast online video library. You upload, view, share, and comment on content found on the site. Videos found on the full YouTube range from commercial to educational content. YouTube often has questionable content so is blocked in many schools. Some schools block YouTube simply because streaming video "hogs" network resources. If inappropriate content is your administration's main concern, YouTube offers a way your tech department can configure a limited access channel. See the explanation video and related information to share with the tech department here.

YouTube is very valuable to educators looking for great educational content. There are videos for early elementary concepts like safety up through college level courses. YouTube has the ability to stream content into channels based upon your viewing preferences, and videos are easily marked as "favorites" to find in your history. It offers suggested channels based on your watching history including trending and popular videos. Parents can filter out objectionable content and comments using Safety Mode -- which is often disabled.

Create a YouTube channel to collect videos for easy access by students. Upload teacher-created videos for your class to your channel. Do you know a great video not featured on You Tube EDU? Suggest it for the EDU collection.

In the Classroom

Use YouTube Teachers/EDU to create a channel of appropriate videos for your class. Consider creating your own videos of content that can be uploaded to your YouTube channel. Use videos to introduce topics, dig deeper into the content, and review for exams. You may even want to try "flipping" you class so students view the video information as homework and practice with concepts in class the next day. Students can be given the task of finding suitable videos that take the content deeper for better understanding. Create video guides that go with the videos or quizzes that can be given at the end. Assign videos for students to view and give them time to use the information to create a presentation for the rest of the class.

Discover irreverent, creative new projects featured every week in Evil Mad Scientist blog. This blog features applied science and math concepts in unique or unusual ways. A few of them push the envelope, but all will get you thinking. Every Wednesday, new projects tickle your imagination. Watch videos, read the latest stories, or comment on existing projects. Browse the shop,-- not to buy, but to see and analyze remarkable inventions. Join a mailing list to never miss new projects. Note: a few of the ideas involve hacking electronics and computers, so the site may be blocked by school filters. Preview to know for sure. See notes below on ways to share specific articles.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Inspire creativity and original thinking with Evil Mad Scientist. Use as inspiration or examples for student projects in art, science, or music, research, or applied creativity. If you share a link with students, you may want to link to a specific post or use Readability (reviewed here) to provide a "clean view" of the post. Evaluate projects together on the IWB to help students identify characteristics of creativity and talk about how the ideas may have come to be. Use this site during a unit on scientific method so students connect the discipline of research with the creative results. What kind of experimenting took place? What principles of science? Compare the inventions available in the Shop with inventions from the Industrial Revolution. How is today a different environment for inventors (or is it?) Begin your own Evil Mad Scientist blog to feature your students' creativity or slightly irreverent ideas in a safe and school-appropriate environment, almost as an STEM graffiti wall.

Try Duck Duck Go, an open source search engine that protects your privacy by not tracking your search habits. Without tracking, you get true search results not tied to your personality or search habits. Duck Duck Go shows search results in a unique way. The site is very clean and uncluttered. Results of your search term can provide a definition or other general information, labels on links that are an official site, and more. On the right side, find additional search ideas. Clicking on terms will add that term to your original search term and generate new results. Go to the settings page to change privacy settings. Change result settings, color settings, look and feel of the search results page, and interface settings also. Search for calculations, dates and events, and more. Be sure to click on Goodies under the search box to find an easy way to enter search terms. Instead of copying and pasting these search strings, change the information you need to alter in the box and press Go! An unbelievably easy way to search!

In the Classroom

Provide a link to Duck Duck Go on your class website or as a start page on a classroom computer. Use Duck Duck Go to teach about search strategies and help students think of search terms. When discussing searching in class, compare Duck Duck Go to other search engines, noticing the differences between the search experience and results between the various search engines. Be sure to discuss the advantages, disadvantages, and reliability of the search results with each of the various search engines. Be sure to point out the additional search terms and how these terms can provide more targeted search results. Try a game where students predict what other terms might show up from a given starting search. This will teach the mental flexibility to realize what else the search engine might "think" you mean. For example, if we enter "apple," what other terms might we see?

This section of the larger Childtopia website offers seven classic tales in interactive, audio book format: The Emperor's New Clothes, The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Tin Soldier, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, and Little Red Riding Hood. These audio stories are available in English, Spanish, French, Catalan, and Basque. The text appears on book pages, and you simply flip the bottom edge of the page to move forward and back. Although the advertisements at this site are a bit distracting, this collection is still worthwhile.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Share these stories as an interactive whiteboard or computer "center" for students of all ages to listen and enjoy. With emergent readers, mute the volume, and read the story as a class or in small groups. In world language classes, have students read the tales in their "new" language. Have students act out the tales. Challenge students to create their own comics to retell a classic tale using one of TeachersFirst's many comic/cartoon tools here.

Poster My Wall is a simple online tool to create posters. Make and download simple posters for free and without registration. Note that free downloads are not high-quality print resolution, so they may appear "fuzzy" if printed in large formats. The simple tools look and feel like a computer program. Choose or upload photos, backgrounds, Flickr photos, and clip-art. You can move and re-size using the floating symbols. Register to be able to email products to friends. (Registration requires email, but there is no waiting for a confirmation.) Obtain the poster url by emailing to yourself. (In the email, click "view larger" to get the link). Check out the reviewer sample here .

In the Classroom

Have students create posters to demonstrate understanding. After an assigned reading, have them create a poster to explain the text. Have students email their finished product to you as an informal assessment. Create a quick presentation of the best posters to share with the class when discussing the reading the next day. Offer posters as one of several options for students to share what they know with you and their peers. Of course, you will want to require proper credit for any images students use in their posters. Use student-made posters to reinforce class rules at the start of the year or to visually display concepts such as branches of government or story elements.

Send email messages as video with this easy to use tool. Sometimes information is just too hard to convey in an email. Perhaps the information is too complicated to type out or it is hard to relay the tone in a message. Sending an email with a video message helps to take care of these problems. To use the site you will need to create a free account. Once the account is created, just login, record or upload your video message, and send. Your recipient will receive an email letting them know they have a new video message. Just one click will get them to the message for viewing.This site includes advertising.

In the Classroom

Have fun with this website, and make classwork more interesting for students! Create a classroom email account, and have students send short summaries of reading passages instead of writing reports. If your students have school email accounts, send a short video message each week including reminders of upcoming activities and reminders for items to bring to class. Teacher mentors can send encouraging videos to mentees with suggestions and classroom tips. Administrators can send videos to staff with reminders of staff meetings or upcoming due dates. Send a short video to parents with upcoming class information such as conferences, field trips, and testing dates. Appoint a new video master each week to record the homework reminders for the class. That is one classroom "job" elementary students will love to have, especially those who like being the center of attention.

Many Book.net is a free web site offering eBooks from Project Gutenburg, The Human Genome Project and audio books, and creative commons works. Using author, title, genre, language, and recommended eBooks find your favorite reads. Join an RSS feed or Twitter to receive updates of the latest eBooks. Submit your work for consideration and possibly to be added to the selections. Register to create your own bookshelf with eBooks you have read. Keep it private, share as an embedded URL, or share on the actual site. Find conversion tools to help with any formats required. Explore the devices available to read the eBooks.

In the Classroom

Fill your classroom library with all the ebooks from the classics. Encourage your students to keep bookshelves of the books they read, while you make your bookshelf available to use for assignment choices or options. Encourage the continual exploration of author, time period, subject matter, and genre. Enchant your voracious and gifted readers alike!

In the Classroom

Build student literacy skills and help students facing personal challenges. Reading about personally meaningful topics will help students work through them. It will also build the important reading strategy of connecting what they read to what they already know. Keep this list handy in your Favorites to suggest options when a student seems to need them. Since the list includes topics for all levels of maturity, you might want to share portions of it rather than the entire list. You may also wan to tell parents about it during parent conferences or when situations arise. as always, allow students to self- select independent reading books from a list of options. Don't forget to share the list with the school and local libraries so they can bring in some of the books on interlibrary loan, if needed. Your school counselor will also appreciate this list. CurriConnects are a great help for teachers and parents who have lost school library/media specialists due to budget cuts.

Use this CurriConnects list to find books about entrepreneurs, consumer skills, shop-owners, and real people in the world of economics or consumerism. This is a great match for units on money at any level. CurriConnects thematic book lists include ISBN numbers for ordering or searching, interest grade levels, ESL levels and Lexiles'''''® to match with student independent reading levels to challenge, not frustrate. Don't miss other CurriConnects themes being added regularly.

In the Classroom

Build student literacy skills, reinforce what students are learning about money and economics, and help students build the important reading strategy of connecting what they read to prior (classroom!) knowledge. Share this link on your class web page or wiki so students can select independent reading books to accompany your unit on economics or financial literacy. Don't forget to share the list with the school and local libraries so they can bring in some of the books on interlibrary loan. CurriConnects are a great help for teachers who have lost school library/media specialists due to budget cuts.